A Life Denied
by Saiyaness28
Summary: 20 years after the chandelier fell, Christine's son goes to the Paris Opera to receive vocal lessons. There he learns of his surprising origins and that the monster that was long thought dead is alive and well and wants to be his new teacher.
1. Chapter 1

A Life Denied

Disclaimer: Phantom of the Opera belongs to Gaston Leroux. This is a pure work of fiction, done completely for fun. This story takes place 20 years after the end of the original story and is a mix of different renditions.

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><p><span>Chapter One: Help Me Say Goodbye<span>

He stuffed his gloved hands into the pockets of his coat as he stepped from the carriage. The wind blew snow into his face, chilling his cheeks and making his yellow eyes sting without mercy. He frowned up at the enormous Chagny mansion. He hadn't stepped foot on these grounds since last Christmas. In the window of the master bedroom stood the reason why. The Viscount peered down at him, his once handsome face withered and battered by time and bitterness. A displeased growl reverberated in the young man's chest as the old Viscount turned coldly away from the window.

The front door flew open and a smile instantly appeared on his face. Angeline, his dear little sister, ran out to him and nearly knocked him to the ground. "Brother!" She cried as they held each other. She sobbed into his collar. "Oh Victor! I'm so happy you're here! I was afraid you wouldn't make it in time!"

Victor pulled her away from him and they rushed, arm in arm, into the house. "How is she?" He asked, a lump forming in his throat.

"Not well. The doctors say she may not make it through the night." Angeline sighed sadly. She wiped a tear from her cheek with a pale hand. Angeline, a girl of mere fifteen, was indeed pale and weathered herself, despite her youth. Dark circles ringed her brown eyes and Victor could tell that she had lost a bit of weight.

Victor wound his fingers through his sister's. "It'll be alright, Angeline." He reassured her, though he couldn't be sure of that.

She smiled brightly at him and squeezed his hand tighter. "I know it will, now that you're home. I've missed you, big brother."

"And I you, my dear. I only wish that our reunion were under better circumstances." He frowned deeply and his brows furrowed as he remembered the beauty and joyous spirit his mother once possessed. To think that she could soon be gone from the world. The light of the world was certainly about to dim.

"Mother's been asking for you." Whispered Angeline. She tilted her head and rested it on Victor's broad shoulder. "She says that there's something she must tell you, before the Angel of Music comes to take her to heaven. She was afraid that he would come before you got here." Angeline opened the master bedroom door and she and Victor entered the large, extravagant room.

Their mother, Christine, laid in bed, the covers pulled up to her breasts, her graying brown hair hidden beneath her night cap. Her natural beauty had wasted away along with her body, her great illness robbing it from her. Each breath was hard to take. Victor could see the difficulty of each intake as her chest shuttered with each inhale.

"I'm here." Said Victor, his voice deep and thick with concern.

Christine's brown eyes shot open and she nearly jolted out of bed at the sound of his voice. Her arms reached towards him. "Angel? My angel? You've come for me at last?" She wailed, tears falling from her eyes.

"For God's sake, Christine! Don't be a fool!" Raoul grumbled, irritably. He jumped up and tried to forcibly push her back down on the bed. "You know that devil isn't here. It's only Victor."

Angeline left Victor's side and went to her mother. She stroked a loose coil of hair away from her face, cooing softly. "It's Victor, mother. Only Victor."

Christine stared at Angeline with a puzzled expression. "My angel…he hasn't arrived yet?" She asked, a bit of disappointment evident in her tone.

"Not yet." Angeline sighed, holding back tears. She eased her mother back down and fluffed the pillows beneath her head.

"Thank you, my dear, Angeline." Christine sighed, warmly smiling at her daughter, their same brown eyes beaming into each others.

"I've had enough of this." Raoul hissed. "I'm going out for a walk. I need air." He stalked towards the door.

Victor stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Mother's on her death bed, Father. Don't you think you should stay?"

Raoul's blue eyes became like icy water as he glared at Victor's face, never meeting his eyes. "You haven't a clue what it's been like, boy. After everything that man did, it's still _his_ name she calls out in her last moments."

"It's the fever, Father. She's confused." Angeline reassured him. "Please stay. We should all be together at this difficult time."

"Right." Victor agreed. "Mother needs to be surrounded by the people who love her. Please, stay, Father."

Reluctantly, Raoul retreated back to the chair at Christine's bedside.

"Victor." Christine called out weakly.

Victor hugged her and kissed her forehead. Her skin was clammy and cool beneath his bow shaped lips. "It's good to see you, Mother." He whispered to her soothingly. He took a seat at the edge of the bed and took her hand.

"Ah, my boy. My little boy. You're here. I'm so glad." She smiled, her chocolate eyes peeking at him under heavy lids. "I was thrilled by your last letter. Are you really going to go to the Paris Opera House for vocal lessons?"

Raoul's eyes widened and all the color drained from his face. "H-He's doing what? No! I absolutely forbid it!"

"What's wrong, dear? I think it's wonderful. He has a God given talent. It would be a shame for him to waste it."

"Yes, Father, the Paris Opera has the best vocal teachers around. He could be a star with the right maestro as his teacher." Said Angeline.

"Christine." Raoul's voice lowered from his peak of anger. He clasped her hand and stroked her knuckles with his fingertips. "That place holds such awful memories for me. For us. Do you really think it wise, allowing him to go there…to that dark pit."

"Raoul, I understand your concern, but I think that this will be good for him."

"Christine." Raoul pleaded, pressing his forehead against hers.

Christine reached up with a trembling hand and stroked his cheek lovingly. "My love, you cannot possibly understand. Music doesn't hold the same value to you as it does for Victor and I. Music…" She paused and her eyes gleamed mysteriously. "Courses through Victor's veins just as assuredly as his own blood. It's apart of his soul. You mustn't keep him from pursuing it. To do so, would be nothing less than torture for him."

"I will never bless it, this horrible decision. Letting him go there will bring nothing but disaster." Raoul grumbled against his wife's hair.

"With all due respect, Father, you forfeited your right to control me long ago." Victor snapped, his yellow eyes sharp and glaring. "Whether you bless it or not makes little difference to me."

"Now, now, stop that. I don't want you two to fight." Said Christine, glaring at both of them. She frowned at Raoul. "What on earth are you afraid of?" She asked, her eyes dimming with sadness. "The Opera Ghost…is dead. He' can't hurt Victor. You needn't worry."

Victor watched as a strange madness seemed to cloud his father's eyes. His pupils became as small as pinpoints. His breathing became raspy, thick with fear. "The Opera. It sits among the streets of Paris, an open wound. It's infected with the ghost's evil. I…I don't want it to corrupt the boy as well." He blinked away the strange look and shook his head. "But perhaps you're right. I'm just being paranoid again." He smiled at Victor, but again their eyes never met. Since childhood it had been much the same. Not once, in his entire twenty years had Raoul ever looked Victor in the eyes. He couldn't for the life of him understand why. "Do what you wish, but I won't step foot in that place."

"Thank you, Father." Victor relented. He'd take the small victory gladly.

"Raoul, will you get me the letter I had you write this morning?" Christine asked, her voice quivering a bit.

Raoul went over to a small box that sat on a dresser and retrieved a folded piece of parchment, sealed in golden wax. He practically shoved it into Victor's hand. Victor shrugged off the rude gesture, but glowered at his Father as he returned to his chair.

"Don't open it." Christine warned. "I want you to give it to my old friend, Meg Giry. She's the ballet instructor for the opera now. Will you do that for me?"

"Of course." Victor smiled warmly, taking her hand once more.

Christine's eyelids were growing increasingly heavy. She peered out at her husband and children through a small crack beneath her lashes. She was so tired. So very tired. "Victor. My dear, boy." She breathed. "Will you sing for me? I want to hear you sing…one last time."

"Yes, Mother." Victor whispered, trying in vain to hold back the tears. Watching his sister sobbing into his Mother's nightgown proved too much and the tears fell freely down his cheeks. He began to sing. Though he cried, he willed his voice to stay steady. He wanted this to be the best song he'd ever sung. He wanted that just for her. He sang with all his heart, all his soul, his voice soft and low.

"_Wishing you were somehow here again. Wishing you were somehow near. Sometimes it seemed if I just dreamed. Somehow you would be here. Wishing I could hear your voice again. Knowing that I never would. Dreaming of you helped me to do. All that you dreamed I could." _

"When my father lay dieing, he promised me that he would send me an angel of music to comfort me. I had thought that I had found him in my old teacher, but…now…I've come to realize… that it was you that my father meant to send all along." Christine smiled weakly and tears rolled down her cheeks.

Victor continued his song, even as his mother's eyes fluttered closed and her chest rose with breath for the final time.

"_Wishing you were here again. Knowing we must say goodbye. Try to forgive. Teach me to live. Give me the strength to try!_" His voice shook with the strong, earth shaking note, all his emotions wreaking havoc on his vocal cords. "_No more memories. No more silent tears. No more gazing across the wasted years. Help me say goodbye._" The song fell apart with him then, his song slipping into heavy sobbing. "_Help me say goodbye!" _He chocked out, before finally falling into silence.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two: Rose on the Grave

Christine's funeral was held two days later. The weather had made a turn for the worse. The ground was covered in a thick blanket of white. Still, more snow fell. It pelted against the windows of the chateau as the Chagny children huddled around the library fireplace.

"Angeline, why do you think Father hates me so much?" Victor asked, snapping his novel closed as the flames of the fire danced across the surface of his golden eyes.

"Hate you? Father doesn't hate you." Angeline assured her brother. "He loves both of us, he truly does. He just has a hard time showing it."

Victor turned his back to the fireplace. It's light outlined his tall frame in yellows, oranges and reds. "He's never had a problem showing his feelings for you or mother. It's just me he's cold towards. Just me. I don't know why and it drives me insane. Have I ever wronged him, Angeline?"

"Not that I can remember." Angeline, sighed. "Perhaps it's your personality. You're very…stubborn and pig headed when you choose to be."

"I am that way, because I grew tired of being the obedient little child that everyone forgot." Victor's eyes narrowed. He began to pace restlessly. "Father sent me away to boarding school when I was only seven. Seven! And when I was here, he acted like he was angry at me or he ignored me completely. He still acts that way." He stopped and shook his head sadly. "Father's never wanted me around."

"That isn't true!" Angeline protested. She leapt from her chair and took her brother's hand comfortingly.

Victor flinched away from her. "Did you know that he's never looked me in the eyes? Not once in twenty years! And mother…" His eyes grew sharp and cloudy with a strange darkness. "Mother never scolded him for it. She allowed it. She never even asked him why."

"Then perhaps you should be the one to confront him." Said Angeline, wrapping her arms around her slight frame to ward off the chill his eyes gave her. Sometimes, these fits would take hold of Victor and quite honestly they frightened her.

"I…I can't." Victor stumbled, his resolve faltering, anger fading.

"Why not? I see that it bothers you, more so than you let on. Tell him how you feel. He's the only parent we have now, you should try to get along with him."

"I'm afraid of what his answer might be." Said Victor sadly. "Besides, I haven't thought of him as a father in a very long time. I've lost the only parent that ever meant anything to me. As far as I'm concerned, I'm an orphan now."

"Victor." Angeline sighed.

Victor stalked over to the coat rack and retrieved his heavy winter coat. He threw it on as he hurried towards the door. "I 'm going to the cemetery. I need air, some time to clear my head."

"I'm going with you." Angeline told her brother. She slipped on her coat and gave him a determined look, her eyes narrowed and jaw set.

"Do as you like." Victor chuckled. And she called him stubborn.

Victor and Angeline traveled to the quiet graveyard where their mother had been laid to rest.

Angeline lingered behind her brother as they traveled across the cemetery grounds, her large eyes watching as his black coat billowed about him. He trudged through the snow, his back slightly bent, his head down. He looked like a man more than three times his age, haggard and beaten by time. Though their mother had adored both of her children, Angeline had always suspected that Victor was her favorite. Unlike herself, he had a voice that could rival their mother's. He shared her deep devotion to music and her unquenchable desire to steadily improve on his god given talents. Though their father had always been frigid towards him, their mother had always been there to ease the pain of rejection. Her warmth soothed away the ache in his heart. Now that she was gone, Victor had no one. No one would mourn Christine's death more than he.

Victor twisted his head around to look back at her. Golden eyes glinted through the heavy snowfall. "Don't dawdle." He said, stopping to allow her to catch up. She sped up her pace until they were striding side by side.

They stood together around their mother's grave. Angeline clasped her hands before her heart and prayed silently for her mother's soul. May she rest peacefully in heaven.

Victor knelt before the headstone and wiped snow away from Christine's name and portrait. He smiled sadly at the picture. He wished he could see her face again. He ran his fingers over it once more. "I bet you're putting the angels to shame with your song. Aren't you, mother?" He whispered beneath his breath. A barely there chuckle escaped his lips. He continued to wipe snow from the top of the headstone and from around it's base. Victor felt something buried in the snow and swiftly retrieved it. "Angeline, has father come to visit her, recently?" Victor asked, keeping his back to her.

"Not since the funeral. Why?" She asked.

Victor turned towards her and showed her the red rose he'd found in the snow. Around its stem was a black ribbon.

"How beautiful!" Angeline gushed, taking the frozen rose from him. She gently caressed its soft petals with her fingertips. "This is strange. Everyone else is waiting until after the storm passes to bring flowers out here. Who could have left this, I wonder."

"I don't know." Said Victor, his eyes locked on the black ribbon that was tied around the rose's stem. "But something about it does not sit well with me. Let's take it back to father. Perhaps he'll know where it came from. If it's nothing, then I'll bring it back out here on my way to Paris tomorrow."

"Very well." Said Angeline, a bit bewildered. What could be so wrong about a rose?

"Where did you get that!" Raoul demanded at the children's return. He stared at the rose in Victor's hand as if he were looking down the barrel of a gun.

I found it at Mother's grave." Victor explained. "Do you know who may have left it?" He asked.

Raoul snatched the rose out of his son's hand and hurled the offending flower into the fire place. He stood by the mantel and watched it burn. "It's a token from the devil, nothing more." He hissed, watching the flower shrivel and burst into flame.

"I don't understand." Angeline squeaked, frightened by her father's outburst. He was disheveled and wobbly on his feet. He'd obviously been drinking…a lot. "Who left the rose?"

"Didn't you hear me?" Raoul growled. "It was the Devil!" He screamed, his eyes filled with rage. He stumbled towards them and slung the nearly empty glass of wine he'd been nursing into the flames with the rose. It crashed against the tender and sparks flew into the air.

Angeline cried out in fear and Victor instinctively stepped in front of her to shield her from their father. "Enough!" Victor growled, daring to meet Raoul in the eyes. "You're frightening her. Get a hold of yourself. We only want to know who would have left the rose and why it is that you'd rather see it burned than let it lie on Mother's grave. Tell us the truth, Father. Please."

"I am not your damned father." Raoul sighed finally. His voice was that of a man that had given up. He shook his head as he turned away.

"What?" Victor asked, his voice very quiet, almost unheard.

Angeline grew still behind him.

"I meant it. I am not your father, Victor. Truly, I am not. I am not saying this to be cruel. It's the truth." He collapsed into a chair by the fireplace and watched the flames with a blank look on his face. "Those damned roses. They appear every so often. They are a gift from him…you're real father."

"Who is he?" Asked, Victor, feeling his legs grow weaker under the weight of the truth. This was why his father had been so cold to him growing up, why he didn't love him the way he loved his sister. He wasn't Raoul's son at all. He had always wanted to know why. Now he had his answer.

The older man did not look at him. He continued to stare without blinking, despite how the heat from the fire must have been burning his eyes. "He is the devil, as I said. He ruined me, nearly killed me, nearly stole your mother from me forever. He's the very reason why I don't want you to go to the Paris Opera. For as long as those roses appear, I know that he's still alive, down there in his pit beneath the opera's floors."

"The Opera Ghost?" Asked Victor. He laughed, despite himself. "You think the Phantom of the Opera is my real father?" He chuckled.

"Don't laugh." Raoul scolded.

Seeing his serious expression, Victor instantly quieted. "You mean it? You really believe that I was fathered by a ghost?"

"The Phantom of the Opera was no ghost. He was very much a living, breathing man. He was your mother's vocal teacher. It was thanks to him that she became a star, but he was mad. He killed people, threatened my life, all for the sake of keeping your mother for himself. Your mother admired him for his genius and pitied him for the deformities that he bore, both on his flesh and upon his soul. He took advantage of that weakness. And thus, we were left with you."

Victor felt his body begin to shake at the enormity of it all. He, the offspring of a monster such as the Opera Ghost? No, it couldn't be true! Could it? Was it from him that he got his eyes? His hair? And what of his talent? Was it only due to the fact that he was the phantom's child that he carried the gift? How much was he like his true father really?

"This can't be true!" Angeline cried. She ran to her father and sobbed into his shirt. She clung to him, desperate for comfort. "Victor _is _my brother!"

"Yes. He is." Raoul assured her as he rubbed her back to ease her sobbing. His blue eyes lifted up to Victor, who's knees had finally given way beneath him. "But only half."


End file.
